Albert Meets America: How Journalists Treated Genius during Einstein's 1921 Travels

4 City’s Welcome (April 5)

Tuesday, April 5 City to Honor Zionist Leaders Today Today at the City Hall,the“Freedom of the City”will be conferred upon Dr. Chaim Weizmann, Prof. Albert Einstein and Menachem Mendel Ussischkin , the Zionist leaders who arrived here on Saturday evening. The Welcome Committee appointed by Mayor Hylan will call upon the distinguished guests at the Hotel Commodore where they are staying and will escort them to the City Hall. It had at first been arranged that the ceremony should take place in the Aldermanic Chamber, but in view of the wide-spread desire to witness the event, the speeches will be delivered from the steps of the City Hall. Addresses will be delivered by Mayor Hylan, ex-Secretary of State Frank Polk and Magistrate Bernard A. Rosenblatt. Dr. Weizmann will respond. This will be the first public utterance of the Zionist leader since his arrival in New York. Next Sunday there will be an official Zionist reception at the Metropolitan Opera House and the following Tuesday evening a popular greeting will be extended to the Zionist leaders at the Sixty-Ninth Regiment Armory. From the moment of their arrival the Zionist leaders have been besieged by delegations of eager Zionists who have come to greet their leaders and who have thronged the lobbies and halls of the hotel on Pershing Square. After the procession from Battery Park to the Hotel on Saturday, many Zionists lined the streets and for hours waited to catch a glimpse of their leaders from abroad. 4 City’s Welcome ) [Here follows the paragraph in which an impromptu reception is described ; see below.] Yidishes Togeblat—The Jewish Daily News, April 5. City’s Welcome for Dr. Einstein With Dr. Weitzmann He Calls on the Mayor—Great Crowd, Carrying Zionist Flags,Gather Outside City Hall to See Noted Scientists Thousands of members of the Jewish faith came to City Hall Park today to welcome two distinguished representatives of their race, both noted scientists and leaders in the Zionist movement, Dr. Chaim Weitzmann and Dr. Albert Einstein, who are here to promote the cause of a permanent home for Zionists in Palestine. The principal address of welcome at the ceremonies within the City Hall was made by George W. Wickersham, ex-United States Attorney General, who was unexpectedly introduced to the delegation while Mayor Hylan, the official representative of the city, merely read a brief address. Long before the hour set for the arrival of the Zionist leaders, hundreds of people began pouring into City Hall Park, bearded men and young women, all wearing insignia of welcome and carrying the blue and white striped flag of Zion, with the Star of David in the centre. While Dr. Weitzmann headed the delegation, it was for Dr. Einstein, the propounder of the theory of relativity, that the throng reserved a tumultuous greeting. As Dr. Einstein left the building he was lifted to the shoulders of his colleagues in the automobile, which passed in triumphal procession through a mass of waving banners and a roar of cheering voices. Einstein Remains Unmoved The Mayor greeted the party in the reception room of the City Hall, where he was introduced to the members of the delegation by Bernard A. Rosenblatt. Dr. Einstein stood out in sharp contrast to the representatives of officialdom about him, accustomed as they were to all the routine of formality . He seemed to drift aimlessly through the ceremonies, with a distant, bewildered expression which caused members of the delegation to nudge him now and then into appropriate activity. Dr. Weitzmann was introduced not only as a great scientist whose disCity ’s Welcome (April 5) ) 45 Hylan,Weizmann,and Einstein at reception at City Hall,NewYork. Courtesy Corbis. coveries had aided materially in the success of the Allied cause, but also as the leader in the Jewish struggle for a self-governing homeland. It was largely due to Dr. Weitzmann’s efforts, the speaker said, that the British mandate over Palestine was secured, assuring the Jews a permanent home in the country of their origin. “Our mission here,” Dr. Weitzmann said, “is to appeal to the Jews of America, who have known so well how to serve this country both in peace and in war, to lend their helping hand in the material and spiritual rebuilding of the Jewish homeland. Thousands of the Jewish pioneers, men and women, have already made their way there in the...